Ann Marie Calhoun - Music Training

Music Training

Calhoun began taking violin lessons at the age of three. As she says: "I actually don't remember learning how to play, because I started when I was three. I feel like I've always known." The first "hint of her talent" came at the age of four when she and her father were watching a Redskins game on television. After the band played "Hail to the Redskins" he suddenly heard it again, only this time on the violin: "She picked it up through her ears, and it came out through her fingers instantly. I knew she had a gift then."

She began playing bluegrass music with her siblings in the Simpson Family Band when she was still quite young. As her father states: "When she was 14, I started taking her to the fiddle contests and she won just about every one."

"My mother, a classically trained pianist, signed me up for violin lessons. My father, a bluegrass banjo player, couldn’t wait for me to learn some fiddle tunes. After I learned my first minuet, my father taught me how to play 'Turkey in the Straw.' I delighted in the contrast of musical styles, and I began supplementing my formal training in the classical violin with fiddle lessons from my father.”

She attended Lake Braddock High School in Virginia close to Washington, D.C.

As a teenager she was a youth fellow with the National Symphony Orchestra, a program that took her to the Kennedy Center weekly and provided private lessons with the National Symphony Orchestra's violinist William Haroutounian. Early on she was conflicted as to what style of music to pursue.

Calhoun attended the University of Virginia where she double-majored in Music and Biology, graduating in the class of 2001. She also took some pre-medicine required courses. While studying there she shared her bluegrass fiddle talents with Walker's Run in Charlottesville, Virginia. From 2001 to 2003 she was part of the bluegrass fusion ensemble Old School Freight Train. She also takes part in Gary Ruley and Mule Train with other members of Walker's Run.

Before dedicating herself completely to her musical career, Calhoun taught science and directed the strings program at the Woodberry Forest School, in Madison County, Virginia. She is "taking a leave from this school to pursue music." She has also been a noted violin and fiddle teacher in both Northern Virginia and Central Virginia.